“I adore your shoes,” he told her. “You must tell me where you got them.”

“Calzados Summun, on Paseo de Gracia,” Alicia replied.

“Of course. They couldn’t come from anywhere else. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to wish my friend Sempere a happy birthday.”

With Don Federico came a cheery-looking young girl called Merceditas who was clearly and quite naively smitten with the elegant watchmaker. When she was introduced to Alicia, the girl looked her up and down, assessing her with alarm. After praising Alicia’s good looks, elegance, and style, she ran off to Don Federico’s side, to keep him as far away from her as was humanly possible in that limited space. If the dining room already looked crowded, when Daniel came through the door and had to slip in among the guests, any moving about began to look precarious. The last person to arrive was a young girl who couldn’t have been more than twenty and radiated the shining spirit and easy beauty of the very young.

“This is Sofía, Daniel’s cousin,” Bea explained.

“Piacere, signorina,” Sofía said.

“In Spanish, Sofía,” Bea corrected her, explaining that the girl came from Naples and was living with her uncle while she studied at Barcelona University.

“Sofía is a niece of Daniel’s mother, who died years ago,” murmured Bea, who obviously didn’t wish to mention Isabella’s name.

It was painful for Alicia to see Granddad Sempere’s devotion and sadness as he hugged her. It didn’t take her long to find a framed photograph in the display cabinet, in which she recognized Isabella in her wedding dress, next to a Señor Sempere looking centuries younger. Sofía was the spitting image of Isabella. Out of the corner of her eye, Alicia saw Sempere gazing at her so adoringly and with such sadness that she had to look away.

Bea, who had noticed Alicia making the connection when she saw the wedding photograph, muttered something under her breath, then said to Alicia, “She doesn’t do him any good. She’s a lovely girl, but I can’t wait for her to go back to Naples.”

Alicia just nodded in response.

“Why don’t you start sitting down?” ordered Bernarda from the kitchen. “Sofía, darling, come over and give me a hand. I need a bit of young blood here.”

“Daniel, what about the cake?” asked Bea.

Daniel huffed and rolled his eyes. “I forgot . . . I’ll go down right now.”

Looking sideways at Don Anacleto, Alicia noticed that he was trying hard to creep toward her end of the dining room. She instantly hit on a plan. When Daniel walked past her on his way to the door, she followed him.

“I’ll come with you. The cake’s on me.”

“But—”

“I insist.”

A moment later Bea was left staring at them, frowning, as they disappeared through the door.

“Everything all right?” asked Bernarda next to her.

“Yes, of course . . .”

“I’m sure she’s a saint,” whispered Bernarda, “but I don’t want her sitting next to my Fermín. And if you don’t mind my saying so, neither do I want to see her next to Danielito, bless him.”